If you dial 9-1-1 on a cell phone and just press send, can they come find you?

[HappyGrace]

I had a horrible dream last night where I was in a predicament where all I could do was dial 9-1-1 and press send, but couldn't speak because the bad guy was right there and would hear me. I was frantic wondering if they could locate where I was calling from and if help was on its way or not.

 

It got me thinking in real life in that situation if they could locate me and come with help? I know most landlines have tracking, where they see immediately where you are and can come. But what about cell phones? What about TracPhones (which I have)?

 

I'm thinking it wouldn't work, because I think I remember hearing on the news years ago where a lady did this and was found only because she talked out loud after pressing 9-1-1 and would say things like "why are you taking me past the Loudon Road Park, etc" so the 9-1-1 operators could hear but the kidnapper didn't know.

[CarolfromIL]

I sure hope they would find you but I'm not sure! Its funny but I had a dream last night about calling 911. I was in the car with my father (who passed away 3 years ago) and he was having a heart attack.... I called 911 and was put on eternal "hold"---and ended up driving him to the hospital myself...in my dream at least...lol

 

I think that dream came from the fact my son was playing hockey and sustained a severe cut in a game a few weeks back and required stitches. One of the coaches dialed 911 and it took forever to have the ambulance come to the school. After 10 minutes---the coach realized that we were at the middle school and not the elementary school as he stated to the 911 operator. Sure enough, the ambulance went to the wrong school and within a couple of minutes the ambulance was redirected to the middle school ice arena after the coach called back to find out why the ambulance had not arrived yet. I was shocked----because I thought that the fire department dispatchers could rely on GPS!

Edited October 19, 2011 by CarolfromIL

[beaners]

I think almost all cell phones are enabled to track GPS on 911 calls, but it probably isn't precise.

 

My own personal experience with calling 911 on a cell phone hasn't been great. I have an out of state cell number. One of the houses way down the road had smoke coming from the windows but I couldn't go over because I had my children in the house, and I didn't have their number. I tried to call 911 but my call wasn't sent to the right place. I had to hang up and call a local fire department to call 911. I wasn't sure which fire district we were in. It turned out to be nothing; they were messing with the flue on a new stove and couldn't get it working at first. It's a little scary to think of what might have happened. Hopefully the system has been fixed since then.

[elegantlion]

I recently called 911 on my cell. They answered with Emergency, (name of my city). Their second question was my location and a confirmation I was in that city. I don't know if they would have been able to track it, but he knew I was on a cell phone.

[BarbecueMom]

Yes and no. Not all 911 centers have "Enhanced 911" to read GPS coordinates. We had a partially upgraded system when I dispatched. I could reload the information on the call screen to get map coordinates, then plug those in on the map and get a general area. This happened on a domestic violence call once. All I could hear was screaming and stuff being thrown. The map coordinates gave me a city block as a general location and I was able to match the address with one of our "regular customers". If the call isn't long enough, or too far from a tower, or out of our jurisdiction, I had no way of locating it by map. When I left, we had just upgraded again to a system where the 911 system and map were connected, and the location popped up automatically. But it had a lot of bugs - a certain not-bright dispatcher sent a lot of well being checks to a cell phone tower that kept popping up.

 

Some places have better and more accurate systems. Some counties, well, 911 is still whatever deputy is guarding the jail that night.

 

I had many people call and ask if we could call someone ourselves and get their location by GPS. No, but in emergency cases we could subpoena the phone company to get the phone traced.

[Quiver0f10]

I wondered this too and called my local non-emergency number. They had me dial 911 and explain that we were testing it and they confirmed where we are located. I would not try this without calling your police or fire department first though.

[Guest]

I know that I've entered my address on the 911 address section of the TMobile website (my phone carrier). I've always assumed that if something happened and I called 911, they'd head to our home. I don't know that my phone is fancy enough for them to immediately track it if I called from elsewhere.

[Rhonda in TX]

If you don't say something, you may not get help whether you're on a land line or cell phone. A friend's sister had serious health problems. She was alone and knew she was in trouble, so she called 911. She passed out before they answered, though. 911 did send somebody to her house, but when nobody answered, they left. My friend's sister died. :(

 

I always thought they would bust down the door if someone called, but apparently not.

[Crimson Wife]

I've dialed 9-1-1 from my cell phone at my house before (we don't have a landline) and it connects me with the CA Highway Patrol. I have to ask to be transferred to my town's emergency number. I guess the closest cell tower is the one by the highway 1/2 mile away.

 

I think in a situation like you described, I'd have better luck hitting the panic button on our home's security system.

[Parrothead]

If your GPS is enabled and they have the ability to read the coordinates they would be able to find you. Otherwise no.

 

In most places if you call from a land line they will send an officer to check on things if there is a hang up or no one speaking.

 

I answered one once where no one said anything. They just dialed and threw the phone down. It took me about 3 minutes to realize the crackling sound I could hear was a fire burning.

[Little Nyssa]

Where we used to live, if you called 911 a recording said something like "press 1 if this is an emergency." It just took a second after that to get to a real person, but I guess they were trying to weed out accidental calls.

[athena1277]

Ok, I have wondered about this too. We live in VA, but our cell numbers have an AL area code. We never got new numbers when we moved, because we intend to move back.

 

Over the weekend, I called poison control because dh and I accidentally both gave ds benadryl within an hour of each other. When I called, I got someone in AL because of my phone number. Thankfully they helped me without problem.

 

So if I call 911, will I get a dispatcher in AL or VA?

[Tutor]

I recently called 911 on my cell. They answered with Emergency, (name of my city). Their second question was my location and a confirmation I was in that city. I don't know if they would have been able to track it, but he knew I was on a cell phone.

 

This was my experience as well. We were on a town square, and I was asked what side of the square I was on (n, s, e, or w) and what buildings I could see on the periphery of the square from where I was standing. The dispatcher knew I was on a cell but did not know my location without my description. Fortunately, we were at a large event where medics were already standing by, so they were able to respond very quickly.

[sparrow]

I dialed 911 from my cell on Monday. A raccoon was stumbling around in broad daylight at my daughter's soccer practice. Her coach is a fireman and said I might want to call 911. I did so and they asked where I was.

[BarbecueMom]

I dialed 911 from my cell on Monday. A raccoon was stumbling around in broad daylight at my daughter's soccer practice. Her coach is a fireman and said I might want to call 911. I did so and they asked where I was.

 

Even if they have the exact address in front of them, they should ask for the address anyway to confirm. For medical calls, protocol was to ask address and phone number twice, and we could not repeat it and ask, "Is this correct?". Lots of people get frustrated at those early non-medical questions, but it's a lot quicker than sending someone to the wrong house or having the wrong number if we get disconnected. The mapping software can be very, very wrong.

[HappyGrace]

Ok, so in my dream I would have been killed, I guess. And in real life too, probably, it sounds like!

 

It would be great if they could use GPS to update their 9-1-1 stuff and make it more efficient for tracking!

 

Thanks, everyone!

[mcconnellboys]

When my older son was a toddler, he called 911 and hung up. They sent police to the house. So yes, they are supposed to track you just in case you are in a situation where you can't speak. Whether or not that will happen and with what rapidity would depend on the system you call in to and who is working it at the time, I guess....

[Excelsior! Academy]

Yes. They do here. My dd called one time while being left at home for 20 minutes. Apparently my dad told them how to call 911 if anything ever happened. She wanted to try it out to see if it would work. You know, in case anything happened while I was gone. They sent out the police and he asked the girls if they had called. They admitted they had. When I arrived home dd met me in the driveway hysterically crying. If she had not confessed, I would have never known.

[Melissa in Australia]

My brother was involved in a single car accident, it was very bad. He was in the middle of nowhere on a rural road way in thick bush very early in the morning with no traffic. He called 000 (AUS equivalent) and was screaming, he then passed out. He gave no information on where he was or anything. He came too when they were loading him into the ambulance helicopter. they found him by his mobile call, When a motorist arrived on the scene a few minutes afterward, the ambulance was already en-route.